


Noise

by TsarinaTorment



Series: International Rescue & Relief [20]
Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Bribery, Family, Gen, Jazz Music, Pranks, Revenge, Siblings, Technology, irrelief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:06:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25924855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TsarinaTorment/pseuds/TsarinaTorment
Summary: Was that racket supposed to be blaring from their comms?  Alan hoped not.
Series: International Rescue & Relief [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1671880
Comments: 3
Kudos: 24





	Noise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bonsaiiiiiii](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bonsaiiiiiii/gifts).



> A fanfiction written for #irrelief, using bonsaiiiiiii's prompt "Virgil, while listening to some music, accidentally puts the speakers at full bass at it all resonates in the house."

When his comm suddenly blared out, a deafening noise mildly distorted by its own volume lasting barely a second, Alan jumped a mile in the air – not that he'd ever admit it. A clatter from somewhere above him suggested he wasn't the only one surprised by the- what? What had it been?

"Uh… John?" he asked, wincing as the hologram in front of him declared he'd got the answer to the practice exam question he was begrudgingly doing wrong. _Goaguh;aug_ certainly wasn't the name of the seventy-ninth element in the periodic table, and it certainly hadn't been what he was typing before the noise exploded his eardrums.

John didn't reply, which was decidedly _weird_ , except there was the possibility – slight, but there – that his comm had been damaged by whatever the noise had been. Glaring at the hologram coolly informing him that element seventy-nine was Gold (Au), otherwise known as Aurum, Alan slipped off of his stool and legged it up the stairs, towards the den. If his comm was out, then he'd just use the main system.

Scott was picking up the desk chair when he tore into the den, one hand rubbing his back with a troubled look that was bordering on concern.

"Are you okay?" Alan asked, intentions of contacting John pushed back at the sight of his eldest brother. Scott gave him a rueful grin as he went to sit back down.

"I'm-"

The rest of his sentence – _I'm okay, don't worry_ , if Alan knew Scott at all – was drowned out by a second blast of noise that reverberated from not just Alan's comm, but Scott's, the desk's _and_ the central system. Alan stumbled, slamming his hands over his ears, and Scott missed the chair entirely, landing on his rump on the wooden floor next to it.

"What the hell?" he demanded, voice raised in a shout over the persisting noise, only for it to silence halfway through his sentence, leaving him shouting over nothing. "What the _hell_ is that?"

"Language," Scott cautioned, pushing himself to his feet with a wince. "As for what it was, that sounded like a saxophone to me, but I don't know why it was coming through our communications channel."

"A _saxophone_?" Gordon screeched from behind Alan. He jumped, turning around to see his brother dripping wet from the pool and still only in his swimming shorts. " _That_ was _not_ a _saxophone,_ Scott."

"Then what was it?" their eldest brother challenged. Gordon shrugged.

"Hell?"

The noise blared again, ripping a curse word from Scott's mouth – the hypocrite – and Alan once again slammed his hands over his ears, for all the good it did him. This time it lasted even longer, as though determined that at least one of them would have bleeding ears by the time it was done, but with the vague muffling his hands afforded, Alan realised that Scott was right. It _was_ a saxophone, with a few other indistinguishable sounds in the background.

The noise cut off as suddenly as it had started, but all three brothers kept their hands by their ears, just in case.

"That's _jazz_ music," Gordon spat after a moment. Normally, they equated Gordon to some sort of aquatic sea life, but looking at his brother, Alan could only see a highly offended cat, complete with fur standing on end and claws out. "Or demons masquerading as it."

Jazz? Alan saw realisation spread across Scott's face and guessed he looked somewhat similar. There was only one person in the family with a collection of jazz music.

Scott tapped his comm. "Virgil?"

Static answered him, and he frowned. "Virgil, respond."

Nothing. Gordon grumbled something that would probably have got Scott calling him out on his language too if it had been audible before running for the stairs, leaving a trail of water in his wake. Scott was hot on his heels and, determined to get answers, Alan followed his older brothers up the stairs and to Virgil's bedroom door, where Gordon was banging on it loudly.

"Virgil, open up or I'm busting my way in!" he was shouting. Scott had a hand on his shoulder, presumably to stop him from carrying out his threat. Alan joined his brothers just as the door opened to reveal a dishevelled Virgil.

"Guys, I have no idea what's happening," he defended before any of them could demand their sorely-desired answers. He retreated back into his room, but left the door wide open in a clear invitation to follow. They did, Gordon throwing himself at Virgil's bed before Scott caught him. Alan took advantage of the scuffle to leap up onto it himself.

"What's happening is that your playlist is busting our eardrums," Gordon bristled, and Virgil held up his hands in surrender.

"I don't know why!" he protested. "Every time I turn my playlist on it goes straight to the comms on full volume. I disconnected it so that it couldn't do that but it reconnected again." He reached for the play button, but Scott stopped him.

"We'd like our eardrums intact, Virgil."

"Sorry," Virgil muttered, looking slightly upset as he sat back onto his bed, next to Alan. "I don't understand how that's happening. It shouldn't be doing that."

"Maybe John could help?" Alan offered, hoping that whatever was causing it wasn't also blocking their communications with Thunderbird Five. Maybe John just hadn't answered last time because he was also recovering from the sudden noise?

"Thunderbird Five," Scott called, instantly using his own comm. "John, come in."

To Alan's immense relief, the ginger appeared instantly.

"What's up, Scott?"

"Virgil's playlist is malfunctioning and playing at full volume out of all our comms," Scott briefed him. "Any ideas how to stop it?"

John looked thoughtful. "I'll see what I can find."

Beside Scott, Gordon fidgeted, eyes narrowed into a suspicious squint. "Say, Johnny… Why isn't it blaring out in Thunderbird Five?"

"Don't call me Johnny," John snapped predictably. "It must be a flaw in the Tracy Island network."

He said it so matter-of-factly that for a moment Alan didn't clock exactly what he'd said for a moment. Nor, from their lack of a reaction, did his brothers. Then it hit him.

"John, Tracy Island doesn't have its own network. The International Rescue network isn't subdivided at all," he pointed out.

The holographic form of their brother vanished just as a dangerous growling came from the direction of Scott and Gordon. Alan wasn't sure which one of them was responsible. Beside him, Virgil just dropped his head into his hands with a plaintive "why?"

"I'm going to murder him," Gordon promised, back ramrod straight and shoulders stiff. "Alan, I'm taking Thunderbird Three."

The aquanaut was halfway to the door when his words registered, and Alan yelped. "What? _No_ , Gordon, you can't even pilot her! Besides, you hate going into space!" He lunged off of the bed and grabbed Gordon's wrist, attempting to force him to stop. Unfortunately, Gordon was taller, older, and stronger, and he found himself being pulled along.

Scott, thankfully, was taller, older and stronger than Gordon, and joined Alan in keeping him in the room.

"While I agree with you, Gordon," he started, "we can't launch Thunderbird Three just because John decided to pull a prank."

"So we're just going to let him get away with it?" Gordon demanded, gesturing wildly in the direction of Virgil's music player. "Virgil can't play music until he stops linking it in to the network!"

"I'll survive," Virgil muttered. "Although I'd like to know why John decided to do it. It's not like him."

Scott made a noise that was somewhere between amusement and disbelief. "It is _exactly_ like him," he argued. "Or have you forgotten the time he changed all of our ringtones to _Barbie Girl_ and locked us all out of changing them back?"

Alan didn't remember that, but from the shudder that went through Gordon, he was the only one.

"That was revenge for when he got caught in the crossfire of our water fight and his book got soaked," Virgil pointed out. "He never does this stuff unprovoked."

"So what did we do?" Alan asked. He couldn't think of anything he'd done recently to warrant being almost deafened, and from the puzzled faces of his brothers, he wasn't the only one.

"Is this a brothers' only meeting or can anyone join?" Scott's comm crackled into life, showing Kayo lounging on an invisible couch. She was supposedly off having a girl's night out (read: doing super cool spy things) with Lady Penelope and Grandma in England, but the way she was poised – complete with a black satin dress that Alan had never seen her wear before – seemed off.

Scott groaned, and a lazy grin spread across their sister's face, a little bit like the cat that got the cream.

"Is something wrong?" she asked, although her lack of concern had Alan wracking his brains for anything- "Enjoying a _quiet night in_?"

_Oh._

The realisation struck Virgil and Gordon at the same time, judging by the way they slumped, groaning in an echo of Scott's. Alan ducked behind Virgil, as though that would do any good against Kayo.

They hadn't _meant_ to interrupt her midday nap – a late night mission had kept her up all night – but they'd maybe forgotten how well sound carried through the villa. It had been hot enough that they'd all relocated to the pool, splashing each other and turning it into a full-blown water war, complete with accompanying shouts of pride and vengeance. She hadn't been impressed.

John flickered back into view, munching on a bar of highly expensive chocolate and looking smug.

"You bribed John." Scott's voice was flat. Her Cheshire cat grin widened.

"I gifted John his favourite chocolate and mentioned how inconsiderate you'd been," she said airily. "He agreed to help me."

"So you bribed John," Gordon pointed out, sounding unimpressed.

"Yes."

The _snap_ of chocolate breaking made them all jump. John shrugged unapologetically as he ate the square.

"It's good chocolate," he informed them. Kayo laughed before vanishing, her gloating done. John followed suit, but not before Virgil's playlist flashed up as disconnected again.

The four brothers eyed it warily, before Virgil hauled himself to his feet.

"I think I'll play the piano instead," he sighed.

**Author's Note:**

> Back with IRRelief (still going!) for a quick bit of fluff after all the pain I've put the boys through recently. For those that don't know, it's a collection of prompts organised by Gumnut that anyone can add to and use on tumblr, with a focus on fluff, to give us something to do while we're stuck indoors. [Full details are here](https://nutty.gumnut.net/irrelief/)


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